CHAPTER XI

BEFORE PHARAOH

IT was the day after the adventure of Julius Cæsar and the Little Black
Girl that Cyril, bursting into the bathroom to wash his hands for dinner (you
have no idea how dirty they were, for he had been playing shipwrecked mariners
all the morning on the leads at the back of the house, where the water‐cistern
is), found Anthea leaning her elbows on the edge of the bath, and crying
steadily into it.

“Hullo!” he said, with brotherly concern, “what’s up now? Dinner’ll be cold
before you’ve got enough salt‐water for a bath.”

“Go away,” said Anthea fiercely. “I hate you! I hate everybody!”

There was a stricken pause.

“I didn’t know,” said Cyril tamely.

“Nobody ever does know anything,” sobbed Anthea.

“I didn’t know you were waxy. I thought you’d just hurt your fingers with the
tap
page: 257 again like you did last week,” Cyril
carefully explained.

“Oh—fingers!” sneered Anthea through her sniffs.

“Here, drop it, Panther,” he said uncomfortably. “You haven’t been having a row
or anything?”

“No,” she said. “Wash your horrid hands, for goodness’ sake, if that’s what you
came for, or go.”

Anthea was so seldom cross that when she was cross the others were always more
surprised than angry.

Cyril edged along the side of the bath and stood beside her. He put his hand on
her arm.

“Dry up, do,” he said, rather tenderly for him. And, finding that though she did
not at once take his advice she did not seem to resent it, he put his arm
awkwardly across her shoulders and rubbed his head against her ear.

“There!” he said, in the tone of one administering a priceless cure for all
possible sorrows. “Now, what’s up?”

“Promise you won’t laugh?”

“I don’t feel laughish myself,” said Cyril, dismally.

“Well, then,” said Anthea, leaning her ear against his head, “it’s Mother.”

“What’s the matter with Mother?” asked Cyril, with apparent want of sympathy.
“she was all right in her letter this morning.”

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“Yes; but I want her so.”

“You’re not the only one,” said Cyril briefly, and the brevity of his tone
admitted a good deal.

“Oh, yes,” said Anthea, “I know. We all want her all the time. But I want her now
most dreadfully, awfully much. I never wanted anything so much. That Imogen
child—the way the ancient British Queen cuddled her up! And Imogen wasn’t me,
and the Queen wasn’t Mother. And then her letter this morning! And about The
Lamb liking the salt bathing! And she bathed him in this very bath the night
before she went away—oh, oh, oh!”

Cyril thumped her on the back.

“Cheer up,” he said. “You know my inside thinking that I was doing? Well, that
was partly about Mother. We’ll soon get her back. If you’ll chuck it, like a
sensible kid, and wash your face, I’ll tell you about it. That’s right. You let
me get to the tap. Can’t you stop crying? Shall I put the door‐key down your
back?”

“That’s for noses,” said Anthea, “and I’m not a kid any more than you are,” but
she laughed a little, and her mouth began to get back into its proper shape. You
know what an odd shape your mouth gets into when you cry in earnest.

“Look here,” said Cyril, working the soap round and round between his hands in a
thick slime of grey soapsuds. “I’ve been
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thinking. We’ve only just played with the Amulet so far. We’ve got
to work it now—work it for all it’s worth. And it isn’t only Mother
either. There’s Father out there all among the fighting. I don’t howl about it,
but I think—Oh, bother the soap!” The grey‐lined soap had squirted
out under the pressure of his fingers, and had hit Anthea’s chin with as much
force as though it had been shot from a catapult.

“There now,” she said regretfully, “now I shall have to wash my face.”

“You’d have had to do that anyway,” said Cyril with conviction. “Now, my idea’s
this. You know missionaries?”

“Yes,” said Anthea, who did not know a single one.

“Well, they always take the savages beads and brandy, and stays, and hats, and
braces, and really useful things—things the savages haven’t got, and never heard
about. And the savages love them for their kind generousness, and give them
pearls, and shells, and ivory, and cassowaries. And that’s the way—”

“Shells, and things like that. The great thing is to get people to love you by
being generous. And that’s what we’ve got to do. Next time we go into the Past
we’ll regularly fit out the expedition. You remember how
page: 260 the Babylonian Queen froze on to that pocket‐book?
Well, we’ll take things like that. And offer them in exchange for a sight of the
Amulet.”

“A sight of it is not much good.”

“No, silly. But, don’t you see, when we’ve seen it we shall know where it is, and
we can go and take it in the night when everybody is asleep.”

“It wouldn’t be stealing, would it?” said Anthea thoughtfully, “because it will
be such an awfully long time ago when we do it. Oh, there’s that bell again.”

As soon as dinner was eaten (it was tinned salmon and lettuce, and a jam tart),
and the cloth cleared away, the idea was explained to the others, and the
Psammead was aroused from sand, and asked what it thought would be good
merchandise with which to buy the affection of say, the Ancient Egyptians, and
whether it thought the Amulet was likely to be found in the Court of Pharaoh.

But it shook its head, and shot out its snail’s eyes hopelessly.

“I’m not allowed to play in this game,” it said. “Of course I could
find out in a minute where the thing was, only I mayn’t. But I may go so far as
to own that your idea of taking things with you isn’t a bad one. And I shouldn’t
show them all at once. Take small things and conceal them craftily about your
persons.”

page: 261

This advice seemed good. Soon the table was littered over with things which the
children thought likely to interest the Ancient Egyptians. Anthea brought dolls,
puzzle blocks, a wooden tea‐service, a green leather case with Nécessaire written on it in gold letters. Aunt Emma
had once given it to Anthea, and it had then contained scissors, penknife,
bodkin, stiletto, thimble, corkscrew, and glove‐buttoner. The scissors, knife,
and thimble, and penknife were, of course, lost, but the other things were there
and as good as new. Cyril contributed lead soldiers, a cannon, a catapult, a
tin‐opener, a tie‐clip, and a tennis ball, and a padlock—no key. Robert
collected a candle (“I don’t suppose they ever saw a self‐fitting paraffin one,”
he said), a penny Japanese pin‐tray, a rubber stamp with his father’s name and
address on it, and a piece of putty.

Jane added a key‐ring, the brass handle of a poker, a pot that had held
cold‐cream, a smoked pearl button off her winter coat, and a key—no lock.

“We can’t take all this rubbish,” said Robert, with some scorn. “We must just
each choose one thing.”

The afternoon passed very agreeably in the attempt to choose from the table the
four most suitable objects. But the four children could not agree what was
suitable, and at last Cyril said—

“Look here, let’s each be blindfolded and
page: 262 reach
out, and the first thing you touch you stick to.”

“Never mind,” said Anthea. “I believe it’s luckier not to really choose. In the
stories it’s always the thing the wood‐cutter’s son picks up in the forest, and
almost throws away because he thinks it’s no good, that turns out to be the
magic thing in the end; or else some one’s lost it, and he is rewarded with the
hand of the King’s daughter in marriage.”

“I don’t want any hands in marriage, thank you.” said Cyril firmly.

“Nor yet me,” said Robert. “It’s always the end of the adventures when it comes
to the marriage hands.”

“I say,” said Cyril suddenly, “I’m rather sick of kings. And people notice you so
in palaces. Besides the Amulet’s sure to be in
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a Temple. Let’s just go among the common people, and try to work ourselves up by
degrees. We might get taken on as Temple assistants.”

“Like beadles,” said Anthea, “or vergers. They must have splendid chances of
stealing the Temple treasures.”

“Righto!” was the general rejoinder. The charm was held up. It grew big once
again, and once again the warm golden Eastern light glowed softly beyond it.

As the children stepped through it loud and furious voices rang in their ears.
They went suddenly from the quiet of Fitzroy Street dining‐room into a very
angry Eastern crowd, a crowd much too angry to notice them. They edged through
it to the wall of a house and stood there. The crowd was of men, women, and
children. They were of all sorts of complexions, and pictures of them might have
been coloured by any child with a shilling paint‐box. The colours that child
would have used for complexions would have been yellow ochre, red ochre, light
red, sepia, and indian ink. But their faces were painted already—black eyebrows
and lashes, and some red lips. The women wore a sort of pinafore with shoulder
straps, and loose things wound round their heads and shoulders. The men wore
very little clothing—for they were the working people—and the Egyptian boys and
girls wore nothing at all, unless you count the little ornaments hung on
chains
page: 264 round their necks and waists. The
children saw all this before they could hear anything distinctly. Every one was
shouting so.

But a voice sounded above the other voices, and presently it was speaking in a
silence.

“Comrades and fellow workers,” it said, and it was the voice of a tall,
coppery‐coloured man who had climbed into a chariot that had been stopped by the
crowd. Its owner had bolted, muttering something about calling the Guards, and
now the man spoke from it. “Comrades and fellow workers, how long are we to
endure the tyranny of our masters, who live in idleness and luxury on the fruit
of our toil? They only give us a bare subsistence wage, and they live on the fat
of the land. We labour all our lives to keep them in wanton luxury. Let us make
an end of it!”

A roar of applause answered him.

“How are you going to do it?” cried a voice.

“You look out,” cried another, “or you’ll get yourself into trouble.”

“I’ve heard almost every single word of that,” whispered Robert, “in Hyde Park
last Sunday!”

“Let us strike for more bread and onions and beer, and a longer mid‐day rest,”
the speaker went on. “You are tired, you are hungry, you are thirsty. You are
poor, your wives and children are pining for food. The barns of the rich are
full to bursting
page: 265
page: 266 with the corn we want, the corn our labour
has grown. To the granaries!”

“To the granaries!” cried half the crowd; but another voice shouted clear above
the tumult, “To Pharaoh! To the King! Let’s present a petition to the King! He
will listen to the voice of the oppressed!”

For a moment the crowd swayed one way and another—first towards the granaries and
then towards the palace. Then, with a rush like that of an imprisoned torrent
suddenly set free, it surged along the street towards the palace, and the
children were carried with it. Anthea found it difficult to keep the Psammead
from being squeezed very uncomfortably.

The crowd swept through the streets of dull‐looking houses with few windows, very
high up, across the market where people were not buying but exchanging goods. In
a momentary pause Robert saw a basket of onions exchanged for a hair comb and
five fish for a string of beads. The people in the market seemed better off than
those in the crowd; they had finer clothes, and more of them. They were the kind
of people who, nowadays, would have lived at Brixton or Brockley.

“What’s the trouble now?” a languid, large‐eyed lady in a crimped,
half‐transparent linen dress, with her black hair very much braided and puffed
out, asked of a date‐seller.

“Oh, the working‐men—discontented as
page: 267 usual,”
the man answered. “Listen to them. Anyone would think it mattered whether they
had a little more or less to eat. Dregs of society!” said the date‐seller.

“Scum!” said the lady.

“And I’ve heard that before, too,” said Robert.

At that moment the voice of the crowd changed, from anger to doubt, from doubt to
fear. There were other voices shouting; they shouted defiance and menace, and
they came nearer very quickly. There was the rattle of wheels and the pounding
of hoofs. A voice shouted, “Guards!”

“The Guards! The Guards!” shouted another voice, and the crowd of workmen took up
the cry. “The Guards! Pharaoh’s Guards!” And swaying a little once more, the
crowd hung for a moment as it were balanced. Then as the trampling hoofs came
nearer the workmen fled dispersed, up alleys and into the courts of houses, and
the Guards in their embossed leather chariots swept down the street at the
gallop, their wheels clattering over the stones, and their dark‐coloured, blue
tunics blown open and back with the wind of their going.

“So that riot’s over,” said the crimped‐linen‐dressed lady; “that’s
a blessing! And did you notice the Captain of the Guard? What a very handsome
man he was, to be sure!”

The four children had taken advantage of the moment’s pause before the crowd
turned
page: 268 to fly to edge themselves and drag
each other into an arched doorway.

Now they each drew a long breath and looked at the others.

“We’re well out of that,” said Cyril.

“Yes,” said Anthea, “but I do wish the poor men hadn’t been driven back before
they could get to the King. He might have done something for them.”

“Not if he was the one in the Bible he wouldn’t,” said Jane. “He had a hard
heart.”

“Ah, that was the Moses one,” Anthea explained. “The Joseph one was quite
different. I should like to see Pharaoh’s house. I wonder whether it’s like the
Egyptian Court in the Crystal Palace.”

“I thought we decided to try to get taken on in a Temple,” said Cyril in injured
tones.

“Yes, but we’ve got to know some one first. Couldn’t we make friends with a
Temple doorkeeper—we might give him the padlock or something. I wonder which are
temples and which are palaces,” Robert added, glancing across the market‐place
to where an enormous gateway with huge side buildings towered towards the sky.
To right and left of it were other buildings only a little less magnificent.

“Did you wish to seek out the Temple of Amen‐Rā?” asked a soft voice behind them,
“or the Temple of Mut, or the Temple of Khonsu?”

They turned to find beside them a young
page: 269 man. He
was shaved clean from head to foot, and on his feet were light papyrus sandals.
He was clothed in a linen tunic of white, embroidered heavily in colours. He was
gay with anklets, bracelets, and armlets of gold, richly inlaid. He wore a ring
on his finger, and he had a short jacket of gold embroidery something like the
Zouave soldiers wear, and on his neck was a gold collar with many amulets
hanging from it. But among the amulets the children could see none like theirs.

“It doesn’t matter which Temple,” said Cyril frankly.

“Tell me your mission,” said the young man. “I am a divine father of the Temple
of Amen‐Rā and perhaps I can help you.”

“Well,” said Cyril, “we’ve come from the great Empire on which the sun never
sets.”

“I thought somehow that you’d come from some odd, out‐of‐the‐way spot,” said the
priest with courtesy.

“And we’ve seen a good many palaces. We thought we should like to see a Temple,
for a change,” said Robert.

The Psammead stirred uneasily in its embroidered bag.

“Have you brought gifts to the Temple?” asked the priest cautiously.

“We have got some gifts,” said Cyril with equal caution. “You see
there’s magic mixed up in it. So we can’t tell you everything. But we don’t want
to give our gifts for nothing.”

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“Beware how you insult the god,” said the priest sternly. “I also can do magic. I
can make a waxen image of you, and I can say words which, as the wax image melts
before the fire, will make you dwindle away and at last perish miserably.”

“Pooh!” said Cyril stoutly, “that’s nothing. I can make
fire itself!”

“I should jolly well like to see you do it,” said the priest unbelievingly.

“Well, you shall,” said Cyril, “nothing easier. Just stand close round me.”

“Do you need no preparation—no fasting, no incantations?” The priest’s tone was
incredulous.

“The incantation’s quite short,” said Cyril, taking the hint; “and as for
fasting, it’s not needed in my sort of magic. Union Jack, Printing
Press, Gunpowder, Rule Britannia! Come, Fire, at the end of this little stick!”

He had pulled a match from his pocket, and as he ended the incantation which
contained no words that it seemed likely the Egyptian had ever heard he stooped
in the little crowd of his relations and the priest and struck the match on his
boot. He stood up, shielding the flame with one hand.

“See?” he said, with modest pride. “Here, take it into your hand.”

“No, thank you,” said the priest, swiftly backing. “Can you do that again?”

“Yes.”

“Then come with me to the great double
page: 271 house of
Pharaoh. He loves good magic, and he will raise you to honour and glory. There’s
no need of secrets between initiates,” he went on confidentially. “The fact is,
I am out of favour at present owing to a little matter of failure of prophecy. I
told him a beautiful princess would be sent to him from Syria, and, lo! a woman
thirty years old arrived. But she was a beautiful woman not so long
ago. Time is only a mode of thought, you know.”

The children thrilled to the familiar words.

“So you know that too, do you?” said Cyril.

“It is part of the mystery of all magic, is it not?” said the priest. “Now if I
bring you to Pharaoh the little unpleasantness I spoke of will be forgotten. And
I will ask Pharaoh, the Great House, Son of the Sun, and Lord of the South and
North, to decree that you shall lodge in the Temple. Then you can have a good
look round, and teach me your magic. And I will teach you mine.”

This idea seemed good—at least it was better than any other which at that moment
occurred to anybody, so they followed the priest through the city.

The streets were very narrow and dirty. The best houses, the priest explained,
were built within walls twenty to twenty‐five feet high, and such windows as
showed in the walls were very high up. The tops of palm‐trees showed above the
walls. The poor
page: 272 people’s houses were little
square huts with a door and two windows, and smoke coming out of a hole in the
back.

“The poor Egyptians haven’t improved so very much in their building since the
first time we came to Egypt,” whispered Cyril to Anthea.

The huts were roofed with palm branches, and everywhere there were chickens, and
goats, and little naked children kicking about in the yellow dust. On one roof
was a goat, who had climbed up and was eating the dry palm‐leaves with snorts
and head‐tossings of delight. Over every house door was some sort of figure or
shape.

“Amulets,” the priest explained, “to keep off the evil eye.”

“I don’t think much of your ‘nice Egypt,’” Robert whispered to Jane; “it’s simply
not a patch on Babylon.”

“Ah, you wait till you see the palace,” Jane whispered back.

The palace was indeed much more magnificent than anything they had yet seen that
day, though it would have made but a poor show beside that of the Babylonian
King. They came to it through a great square pillared doorway of sandstone that
stood in a high brick wall. The shut doors were of massive cedar, with bronze
hinges, and were studded with bronze nails. At the side was a little door and a
wicket gate, and through this the priest led the children. He seemed
page: 273 to know a word that made the sentries make way for
him.

Inside was a garden, planted with hundreds of different kinds of trees and
flowering shrubs, a lake full of fish, with blue lotus flowers at the margin,
and ducks swimming about cheerfully, and looking, as Jane said, quite modern.

“The guard‐chamber, the store‐houses, the Queen’s house,” said the priest,
pointing them out.

They passed through open courtyards, paved with flat stones, and the priest
whispered to a guard at a great inner gate.

“We are fortunate,” he said to the children, “Pharaoh is even now in the Court of
Honour. Now, don’t forget to be overcome with respect and admiration. It won’t
do any harm if you fall flat on your faces. And whatever you do, don’t speak
until you’re spoken to.”

“There used to be that rule in our country,” said Robert, “when my father was a
little boy.”

At the outer end of the great hall a crowd of people were arguing with and even
shoving the Guards, who seemed to make it a rule not to let anyone through
unless they were bribed to do it. The children heard several promises of the
utmost richness, and wondered whether they would ever be kept.

All round the hall were pillars of painted
page: 274
wood. The roof was of cedar, gorgeously inlaid. About half‐way up the hall was a
wide, shallow step that went right across the hall; then a little farther on
another; and then a steep flight of narrower steps, leading right up to the
throne on which Pharaoh sat. He sat there very splendid, his red and white
double crown on his head, and his sceptre in his hand. The throne had a canopy
of wood and wooden pillars painted in bright colours. On a low, broad bench that
ran all round the hall sat the friends, relatives, and courtiers of the King,
leaning on richly‐covered cushions.

The priest led the children up the steps till they all stood before the throne;
and then, suddenly, he fell on his face with hands outstretched. The others did
the same, Anthea falling very carefully because of the Psammead.

“Raise them,” said the voice of Pharaoh, “that they may speak to me.”

The officers of the King’s household raised them.

“Who are these strangers?” Pharaoh asked, and added very crossly, “And what do
you mean, Rekh‐marā, by daring to come into my presence while your innocence is
not established?”

“Oh, great King,” said the young priest, “you are the very image of Rā, and the
likeness of his son Horus in every respect. You know the thoughts of the hearts
of the gods and of men, and you have divined
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that these strangers are the children of the children of the vile and conquered
Kings of the Empire where the sun never sets. They know a magic not known to the
Egyptians. And they come with gifts in their hands as tribute to Pharaoh, in
whose heart is the wisdom of the gods, and on his lips their truth.”

“That is all very well,” said Pharaoh, “but where are the gifts?”

The children, bowing as well as they could in their embarrassment at finding
themselves the centre of interest in a circle more grand, more golden and more
highly coloured than they could have imagined possible, pulled out the padlock,
the Nécessaire, and the tie‐clip. “But it’s
not tribute all the same,” Cyril muttered. “England doesn’t pay tribute!”

Pharaoh examined all the things with great interest when the chief of the
household had taken them up to him. “Deliver them to the Keeper of the
Treasury,” he said to one near him. And to the children he said—

“A small tribute, truly, but strange, and not without worth. And the magic, O
Rekh‐marā?”

“These unworthy sons of a conquered nation ...” began Rekh‐marā.

“Nothing of the kind!” Cyril whispered angrily.

“... of a vile and conquered nation, can make fire to spring from dry wood—in the
sight of all.”

page: 276
page: 277

“I should jolly well like to see them do it,” said Pharaoh, just as the priest
had done.

So Cyril, without more ado, did it.

“Do more magic,” said the King, with simple appreciation.

“He cannot do any more magic,” said Anthea suddenly, and all eyes were turned on
her, “because of the voice of the free people who are shouting for bread and
onions and beer and a long mid‐day rest. If the people had what they wanted, he
could do more.”

“A rude‐spoken girl,” said Pharaoh. “But give the dogs what they want,” he said,
without turning his head. “Let them have their rest and their extra rations.
There are plenty of slaves to work.”

A richly‐dressed official hurried out.

“You will be the idol of the people,” Rekh‐marā whispered joyously; “the Temple
of Amen will not contain their offerings.”

Cyril struck another match, and all the court was overwhelmed with delight and
wonder. And when Cyril took the candle from his pocket and lighted it with the
match, and then held the burning candle up before the King the enthusiasm knew
no bounds.

“Oh, greatest of all, before whom sun and moon and stars bow down,” said
Rekh‐marā insinuatingly, “am I pardoned? Is my innocence made plain?”

“As plain as it ever will be, I daresay,” said
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Pharaoh shortly. “Get along with you. You are pardoned. Go in peace.” The priest
went with lightning swiftness.

“And what,” said the King suddenly, “is it that moves in that sack? Show me, oh
strangers.”

There was nothing for it but to show the Psammead.

“Seize it,” said Pharaoh carelessly. “A very curious monkey. It will be a nice
little novelty for my wild beast collection.”

And instantly, the entreaties of the children availing as little as the bites of
the Psammead, though both bites and entreaties were fervent, it was carried away
from before their eyes.

“Oh, do be careful!” cried Anthea. “At least keep it dry! Keep it in
its sacred house!”

She held up the embroidered bag.

“It’s a magic creature,” cried Robert; “it’s simply priceless!”

“You’ve no right to take it away,” cried Jane incautiously. “It’s a shame, a
barefaced robbery, that’s what it is!”

There was an awful silence. Then Pharaoh spoke.

“Take the sacred house of the beast from them,” he said, “and imprison all.
To‐night after supper it may be our pleasure to see more magic. Guard them well,
and do not torture them—yet!”

“Oh, dear!” sobbed Jane, as they were led
page: 279 away.
“I knew exactly what it would be! Oh, I wish you hadn’t!”

“Shut up, silly,” said Cyril. “You know you would come to Egypt. It
was your own idea entirely. Shut up. It’ll be all right.”

“I thought we should play ball with queens,” sobbed Jane, “and have no end of
larks! And now everything’s going to be perfectly horrid!”

The room they were shut up in was a room, and not a dungeon, as the
elder ones had feared. That, as Anthea said, was one comfort. There were
paintings on the wall that at any other time would have been most interesting.
And a sort of low couch, and chairs.

When they were alone Jane breathed a sigh of relief.

“Now we can get home all right,” she said.

“And leave the Psammead?” said Anthea reproachfully.

“Wait a sec. I’ve got an idea,” said Cyril. He pondered for a few moments. Then
he began hammering on the heavy cedar door. It opened, and a guard put in his
head.

“Stop that row,” he said sternly, “or—”

“Look here,” Cyril interrupted, “it’s very dull for you isn’t it? Just doing
nothing but guard us. Wouldn’t you like to see some magic? We’re not too proud
to do it for you. Wouldn’t you like to see it?”

“I don’t mind if I do,” said the guard.

“Well then, you get us that monkey of
page: 280 ours that
was taken away, and we’ll show you.”

“How do I know you’re not making game of me?” asked the soldier. “Shouldn’t
wonder if you only wanted to get the creature so as to set it on me. I daresay
its teeth and claws are poisonous.”

“Well, look here,” said Robert. “You see we’ve got nothing with us? You just shut
the door, and open it again in five minutes, and we’ll have got a magic—oh, I
don’t know—a magic flower in a pot for you.”

“If you can do that you can do anything,” said the soldier, and he went out and
barred the door.

Then, of course, they held up the Amulet. They found the East by holding it up,
and turning slowly till the Amulet began to grow big, walked home through it,
and came back with a geranium in full scarlet flower from the staircase window
of the Fitzroy Street house.

“Well!” said the soldier when he came in. “I really am—!”

“We can do much more wonderful things than that—oh, ever so much,” said Anthea
persuasively, “if we only have our monkey. And here’s twopence for yourself.”

The soldier looked at the twopence.

“What’s this?” he said.

Robert explained how much simpler it was to pay money for things than to exchange
them as the people were doing in the market.
page: 281
page: 282 Later on the soldier gave the coins to his
captain, who, later still, showed them to Pharaoh, who of course kept them and
was much struck with the idea. That was really how coins first came to be used
in Egypt. You will not believe this, I daresay, but really, if you believe the
rest of the story, I don’t see why you shouldn’t believe this as well.

“I say,” said Anthea, struck by a sudden thought, “I suppose it’ll be all right
about those workmen? The King won’t go back on what he said about them just
because he’s angry with us?”

“Oh, no,” said the soldier, “you see, he’s rather afraid of magic. He’ll keep to
his word right enough.”

“Then that’s all right,” said Robert; and Anthea said softly and
coaxingly—

“Ah, do get us the monkey, and then you’ll see some lovely magic.
Do—there’s a nice, kind soldier.”

“I don’t know where they’ve put your precious monkey, but if I can get another
chap to take on my duty here I’ll see what I can do,” he said grudgingly, and
went out.

“Do you mean,” said Robert, “that we’re going off without even
trying for the other half of the Amulet?”

“I really think we’d better,” said Anthea tremulously.

“Of course the other half of the Amulet’s here somewhere or our half wouldn’t
have
page: 283 brought us here. I do wish we could
find it. It is a pity we don’t know any real magic. Then we could
find out. I do wonder where it is—exactly.”

If they had only known it, something very like the other half of the Amulet was
very near them. It hung round the neck of some one, and that some one was
watching them through a chink, high up in the wall, specially devised for
watching people who were imprisoned. But they did not know.

There was nearly an hour of anxious waiting. They tried to take an interest in
the picture on the wall, a picture of harpers playing very odd harps and women
dancing at a feast. They examined the painted plaster floor, and the chairs were
of white painted wood with coloured stripes at intervals.

But the time went slowly, and every one had time to think of how Pharaoh had
said, “Don’t torture them—yet.”

“If the worst comes to the worst,” said Cyril, “we must just bunk, and leave the
Psammead. I believe it can take care of itself well enough. They won’t kill it
or hurt it when they find it can speak and give wishes. They’ll build it a
temple, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“I couldn’t bear to go without it,” said Anthea, “and Pharaoh said ‘After
supper,’ that won’t be just yet. And the soldier was curious. I’m
sure we’re all right for the present.”

All the same, the sounds of the door
page: 284 being
unbarred seemed one of the prettiest sounds possible.

“Suppose he hasn’t got the Psammead?” whispered Jane.

But that doubt was set at rest by the Psammead itself; for almost before the door
was open it sprang through the chink of it into Anthea’s arms, shivering and
hunching up its fur.

“Here’s its fancy overcoat,” said the soldier, holding out the bag, into which
the Psammead immediately crept.

“Now,” said Cyril, “what would you like us to do? Anything you’d like us to get
for you?”

“Any little trick you like,” said the soldier. “If you can get a strange flower
blooming in an earthenware vase you can get anything, I suppose,” he said. “I
just wish I’d got two men’s loads of jewels from the King’s treasury. That’s
what I’ve always wished for.”

At the word “wish” the children knew that the Psammead would attend
to that bit of magic. It did, and the floor was littered with a
spreading heap of gold and precious stones.

“Yes, if you like,” said the soldier; “but not through the door, you don’t.”

He closed it carefully and set his broad Egyptian back against it.

page: 285

“No! no!” cried a voice high up among the tops of the tall wooden pillars that
stood against the wall. There was a sound of some one moving above.

The soldier was as much surprised as anybody.

“That’s magic, if you like,” he said.

And then Jane held up the Amulet, uttering the word of Power. At the sound of it
and at the sight of the Amulet growing into the great arch the soldier fell flat
on his face among the jewels with a cry of awe and terror.

The children went through the arch with a quickness born of long practice. But
Jane stayed in the middle of the arch and looked back.

The others, standing on the dining‐room carpet in Fitzroy Street, turned and saw
her still in the arch. “Some one’s holding her,” cried Cyril. “We must go back.”

But they pulled at Jane’s hands just to see if she would come, and, of course,
she did come.

Then, as usual, the arch was little again and there they all were.

“Oh, I do wish you hadn’t!” Jane said crossly. “It was so
interesting. The priest had come in and he was kicking the soldier, and telling
him he’d done it now, and they must take the jewels and flee for their lives.”

“And did they?”

page: 286
page: 287

“I don’t know. You interfered,” said Jane ungratefully. “I should
have liked to see the last of it.”

As a matter of fact, none of them had seen the last of it—if by “it” Jane meant
the adventure of the Priest and the Soldier.